Review - 'The Maid' by Nita Prose

Not gonna lie, The Maid was a disappointment. After all the praises heaped on it, I'm not sure I read the same book as everyone else.

Molly loves order and cleanliness. It's a good thing she works as a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, ensuring that every room is meticulously made up to her high standards. When she finds a dead body in one of her rooms, she's immediately the prime suspect. I mean, who would have more to gain from the death of a customer than a lowly maid?

If you're confused by this premise, you're not alone. It doesn't make any sense. Why would the maid be the prime suspect? But let's move on, because that seems to be the least of my problems with this book.

Where to even start? Clearly, Molly is supposed to be on the autistic spectrum. She has problems understanding social cues and reading others and is obsessed with cleanliness. Except she doesn't read like a fully-formed autistic person so much as a neurotypical author's fantasy of what a cutesy, loveable one should be.

She is depicted as essentially a precocious but dumb child. She is naïve to the point of incredulity. She is unable to understand the simplest of interactions, even when the other person is being direct. She bumbles around, sticking her foot in her mouth and acting as strange as possible to forward the plot of story. However, that's only when it suits the story. Other times, she has more insight than anyone else, even when it comes to things unsaid. Inconsistent much?

It's clear that the author cherry-picked the autistic characteristics that would best serve her story, then exaggerated them to the point of making Molly seem infantile, and created a whole plot out of it. So what's the problem? Well, there's something off about a neurotypical author crafting an adorably stupid but inauthentic autistic character, all for the sake of entertaining a predominantly neurotypical audience. In fact, it feels decidedly icky.

But it's not just Molly who is depicted as a dumb brick. What is up with Juan Manuel? Just because he's an immigrant doesn't mean he's stupid, but the book seems to equate the two. *facepalm* In fact, there is a simplicity and one-dimensionally, not to mention stereotyping, of every character in here that grated on my nerves.

I also have a problem with the story in general. It was so slow and hardly anything happens, I was bored most of the time. There is so much filler, with lots of passages on cleaning and reminiscing of the past. Every development is spelled out in so much detail, just in case the reader is dumb too. The actual plot is straightforward and probably could've been told in 50 pages. And the end was just ludicrous, with a few "twists" thrown in for shock factor, even though they don't make sense for the story or the characters.

However, not all is bad. Every time someone wrongs Molly and she figures it out, she'll wish evil things on them in the most creative and explicit fashion. And those few gems totally made me chuckle. So I'll give an extra star for that.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars